Lower Merion School District\u2019s board on Monday night voted to approve a cooperative between the two schools\u2019 football programs for the 2026-27 school year \u2014 the first step in a long-anticipated effort to create a districtwide football program. The cooperative will now have to be approved by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA). <\/p>\n
The school board\u2019s approval came after months of activism by parents and players<\/a> who say dwindling participation and under-rostered teams have led to a dip in morale and growing safety risks for players. It also marked a reversal for the school district. In November, superintendent Frank Ranelli recommended the district not merge the two football programs<\/a>, saying Lower Merion High School\u2019s team should not have to \u201cgive up their team identity \u2026 and playoff chances\u201d to merge with Harriton. At the time, Ranelli called Harriton\u2019s dwindling player numbers \u201ca problem that [Lower Merion High School does] not need to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n Pressure continued to build<\/a> following Ranelli\u2019s November recommendation, however the board declined to vote on the issue<\/a> at a February meeting, citing complicating factors and a rushed process. <\/p>\n The district hosted a community meeting on the potential merger late last month before announcing Monday\u2019s special school board meeting. <\/p>\n School board president Kerry Sautner on Monday said that as the community wanted the school district to \u201cmove it forward and move it forward fast,\u201d when it came to the merger, the district had to go through \u201can amazing amount of legal review\u201d to build out the policies and safety guidelines \u201cin the right way.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe slowed things down, and there was a lot of people that were upset about it,\u201d Sautner said. \u201c… That was really hard, and [Ranelli was] brand new, and it\u2019s hard to do the right things when you\u2019re brand new, because you just want to start to build those bonds of trust.\u201d <\/p>\n Ranelli became Lower Merion\u2019s superintendent last spring<\/a>. <\/p>\n School board members on Monday said that many of the specifics are still up in the air when it comes to merging the football programs, including where a unified team would practice and how tryouts would work. <\/p>\n The early-stage vote allows the district to secure PIAA approval before it gets the ball rolling on the details, board member Anna Shurak said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere will be a lot of work down the road,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of the details of that work are not figured out. So questions of how this will operationalize, all the way down to tryouts, everything else, we\u2019re not at a place to answer that.\u201d <\/p>\n Under PIAA policy, schools are allowed to merge sports teams under a set of specific conditions, including low student enrollment, a demonstrated a \u201clack of success\u201d or lack of participation in a specific sport, or an agreement to forfeit post-season competition. <\/p>\n While Lower Merion and Harriton exceed the enrollment numbers that allow for a merger, both schools\u2019 football teams have struggled in recent years<\/a>. Due to low player numbers, neither school has been able to field a full freshman or junior variety team in recent seasons. <\/p>\n Chris McCloud, one of the parents who has advocated for the merger in recent months, said the vote to form a cooperative was \u201ca great representation of the school board, the superintendent, and the community all coming together to really do what we all feel is best.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a huge step in the right direction,\u201d McCloud said. <\/p>\n Speaking during public comment on Monday, Joe Augustine, Lower Merion\u2019s head football coach, encouraged the school board to \u201cthink of the \u2018why.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a million things to figure out, and when the \u2018why\u2019 is big enough, those parts can be figured out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Inquirer Lower Merion<\/p>\n A weekly newsletter<\/p>\n Want to get Inquirer Lower Merion straight to your inbox every week? Sign up here for our guide to the news, stories, and events shaping life in your community.<\/p>\n This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate<\/a>. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Lower Merion and Harriton High Schools are one step closer to merging their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,185,184,186,85292],"class_list":["post-191528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-lower-merion-harriton-football-program-merger-school-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Inquirer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778703187_577_I_circle_black.png\")
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